UKGC Shares New Rules on Identifying Risk Customers, Effective in September

The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has announced its intention to apply new rules concerning intervention to risk players just days after dealing with the scrutiny concerning the misused £155 million ($195 million).

Many Operators Did Not Intervene in Time

The new guidance will be issued in June and will be placed into effect in September. Operators will be able to communicate with the UKGC to receive guidance. As the UKGC stated, these new rules are the result of the continued failings by operators to identify risk customers and deal with the matters appropriately.

Operators have now been warned that they need to be prepared to flag all harm indicators and act in a timely manner. The UKGC stated that even though gambling platforms were able to identify risky customers, many of them were too slow to react and thus, allowed further harm to take place.

Andrew Rhodes, the chief executive of the UKGC, stated that the regulator’s enforcement cases show that operators are continuously failing to prevent gambling harm. The new rules, which are created after extensive consultation will make the expectations “more explicit.”

He went on to say that the regulator will not “hesitate to take tough action” on operators who fail to meet the standards.

The New Rules Are More Prescriptive and Stronger

The new rules will come into effect on September 12, 2022, and they will require operators to monitor even the minimum indicators to identify gambling harm. Then, they will have to flag these indicators and act immediately.

Moreover, operators will have to prevent any marketing campaigns for customers who are at risk, implement automated processes for strong harm indicators and evidence their interaction with customers to the UKGC routine casework. Finally, operators will have to ensure that third-party providers also comply with the new rules.

These rule changes are the result of the efforts to make the UK the safest and most regulated gambling market. As a result of operators’ failings to deal with customers at risk promptly, the commission revealed that it received 13,000 to the consultation and call for evidence.

As a concluding note, the UKGC stated that it will continue to work closely with DCMS and take account of the review of the Gambling Act. The government’s review of the Gambling Act has been long overdue and so far, it was postponed several times. That’s why authorities were under scrutiny by the public and numerous organizations.

The co-founders of Gambling With Lives, Liz and Charles Ritchie, spoke on the issue at hand. Liz stated that gambling is responsible for one suicide per day and stated that delays are unacceptable because the longer the process is postponed, the more families will be in danger.